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Friday, September 24, 2010

Reading through some of my old blog posts here at the Missing Man, I came across this one from back in 2006, Counter Terrorism and Kirk von Ackermann. It's a stunning reminder of just how much has been assumed to date - that Kirk von Ackermann drove his suv knowing it had a bad tire over 180 miles of isolated road in Iraq. That von Ackermann was capable of making a dozen bad decisions on the day he disappeared, it's just not possible.

This man did not drive alone through an isolated mountain range in Iraq:

One afternoon we were driving up the highway outside of Langley. I was reading a magazine - the Smithsonian I think - and I was chatting to Kirk about an article discussing the greatest achievement of modern medicine: the successful campaign against smallpox. Wasn't it amazing, I said, the way the WHO had managed it, wasn't it wonderful that the world was safe now from a disease that had been a deadly threat for thousands of years. Very quietly, his hands stiff on the wheel, he said 'it's not gone.'

Just that. But I knew - I knew that not only did he know that more than one country had kept live samples of the virus, he knew intimately the infection rate, the symptoms, the horrific scarring that those lucky enough to survive would suffer. He knew how it could be weaponized, had thought about delivery systems, had worked through countless scenarios in which various populations were targeted and infected.

And gradually I realized that he was living like that constantly. Everywhere we went, there was part of him looking around and evaluating targets, thinking about blast zones, considering mortality rates, political value, public reaction.

I continue to maintain that the person who drove the Nissan Patrol and abandoned it by the side of the road in Iraq, the person who used the satellite phone to call an Iraqi employee for help, is the same person who murdered Kirk von Ackermann.

Kirk von Ackermann

Missing In Iraq

Ryan G. Manelick

On December 14, 2003, his colleague, Ryan Manelick (right) was gunned down shortly after leaving Camp Anaconda also near Balad, Iraq. Both worked for the same contractor, Ultra Services of Istanbul, Turkey.